The arrival of the BMW i3 in 2013 was a landmark moment for not just the German carmaker but the entire automotive industry.

Before this battery-powered hatchback, electric cars were widely seen as a joke, a super-niche toy for geeks with too much money.

However, the i3 – which launched as a full-electric and petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – changed everything and suddenly, almost every car manufacturer was in the game of plug-in and electric vehicles.